Mirror - Extended Version
by DeansBabyBird
Summary: I write in the E/O drabble challenge every week and the challenge word this week was Mirror. Here is the extended version of the drabble. It's quite dark. Season 8 spoilers plus warnings for adult themes, abuse, torture so don't go there if you don't like. Oh and if you are anti-Destiel avoid the last few hundred words, as if ya squint right it could be.
1. Chapter 1

**Extended drabble - Mirror**

**I write in the E/O Drabble challenge and challenge word this week was Mirror. I wrote the drabble below and liked it so much that I decided to extend it. It's a little dark, some themes of abuse and torture and some season 8 spoilers so be warned. Oh and if you are anti-Destiel then don't read the last couple of hundred words cause it could be if you squint right. **

**Hope you enjoy it. **

The original drabble

Minnesota. A week before Christmas and it's cold enough to freeze hell over.

He's laying on his side, unconscious on the concrete floor, it's surface mirror-slick with ice.

His wounds have bled, soaking his t-shirt so it's frozen to the ground and his bare feet are blue with the cold.

Rusted shackles bruise his wrists where his arms are thrown out before him, reaching for the weapon that was wrenched from his hands.

He will survive this time, god knows how but then so will the the one responsible for this and it will forever return for him.

snSNsn

He'd lost track of how long he had been here. He knew it was days but exactly how many he could no longer tell. The room had no windows. No natural light penetrated the darkness so the passing of night to day had become a thing of virtuality rather than meaning.

The hours were long, mostly bleak and cold apart from the intervals when it visited him. Those moments were bright with heat and noise and pain as it ripped and tore and broke him asunder. On the whole he liked those times less than the quiet.

He still fought. Even though now much of him was so damaged that his attempts offered nothing but amusement to the creature.

Well, he assumed it found him funny because now, when it had finished with him it would pause before it left and watch him intently for a few moments. When it did this it would make a distinctive, repetitive clicking-sorta noise which he took to be laughter but really could have been anything. He was pretty sure it wasn't pity though. Yeah, pretty sure on that one.

It was a sound he had come to hate, but for all that, it was better than the sound of his own screaming and that was the other rhythm his heart beat to in it's presence.

He understood hardly at all why it had taken him, for even though it 'talked' incessantly it very rarely bothered to speak any words he could actually understand. It made it really hard to know what to say to it in return but then he figured it clearly didn't matter too much. The words it liked best from him were curses and screams and pleas for mercy and it was more than well practiced at summoning those from him.

What he did know for certain was the one thing it had said to him when he first regained consciousness after it took him. Yeah, took him. Dammit! Cause he had let his guard down for one moment because they were in sight of the bunker and they knew of nothing that was immediately coming for them and they were just carrying the bags in from the grocery run.

It was all so 'normal'. Well, for them. Okay so Cas had fallen and was human but was learning to be so and Sam was better than the walking corpse he had been during the trials and he...Dean...well, he was almost, kinda happy for a second or two. So yeah, as near to normal as it would ever get for him.

And that was when it had found them. With it's talons and teeth and blinding venom and as he had folded boneless into it's crushing arms, his last thought had been 'thank god it took me and not them'.

So he had woken from that to this.

A room.

Spacious enough that he could only see it's walls in the moments when it brought light and in those moments his eyes were always disorientingly out of focus, or swollen closed, or blinded with blood or his own tears. Thus he remained unsure of it's actual dimensions or what lay beyond and his chains prevented him moving to explore.

He suspected he was maybe underground because the room was predominantly cold. The walls he knew ran water. He knew this because when it chained him against them to, toy with him, cold, brackish water tricked over his flesh to make pretty pink pools where it diluted his blood, that it gleefully spilled, onto the concrete floor.

The first time it had chained him there he had tried to drink the water. It had broken his cheek bone, and clawed open his thigh for his audacity so he had not tried that again since. Now he just lapped at the filthy puddles that collected in the pits on the floor, grateful for the meagre moisture despite the grit on his tongue and it's coppery tang.

And what had it said to him? When he had woken here, that lifetime of a few days ago?

It had loomed from the darkness to the circle of light it conjured, it's hooded eyes and dark feathers shining and whispered softly, menacingly.

"Guardian. I am here to teach you to beg for death."

It had spent the next few visits it made carefully and precisely hurting him. Sometimes, it was wanton and abandoned in it's viciousness but more often it was subtle and were the worst times. The times he wanted to beg and sob for it to stop. The times which threatened to break him.

When it craved mere brutality it would release him from his chains and pretend that there was true contest in their sparring. Of course there was not. Whatever manner of creature it was, and remember, he had no name for it and it provided none, it dominated him in every way.

Thus, though he fought with skill and tenacity it out matched him at every turn. Oh he wounded it a little. Sometimes he would be rewarded with a hiss as he landed a blow, or hear the air forced from its lungs as he took it down, but inevitably those tiny victories were short-lived. It's superior power and speed and strength would always result in him curled on the floor, cradling some new broken bone or bleeding wound.

The more measured lessons in agony that it taught him were infinitely more educational. It was a creature that reveled in torment as much as in outright savagery so the quieter, crueler more intimate interludes they shared were infinitely more debilitating.

It would ask him to select a limb and choose a weapon and then it would devise a game for them whereby it would require Dean to wound himself. The first time was his own lighter and his right arm and the challenge was to scorch a slow, straight line of interconnected burns from his elbow to his wrist.

These were the times it would speak to him in words he could recognise. It would explain methodically how he was to inflict each wound. How deep to cut, how wide to burn and what it would do if he refused.

And his first response, of course, had been to tell it to go fuck itself.

It had beaten him unconscious for that and then waited patiently till he woke back up to help him understand why he would, indeed, eventually do everything it asked of him.

It hadn't been difficult. It had simply shown him the child. The child it had fetched, taken as it had taken him and brought to the room to help him understand that if he didn't scar his own body, then it would scar the child's in his place.

He was unsure if the terror he felt then showed on his face. He tried for it not to but the resurgence of memories...foul, twisted, guilt-laden memories of his use of blades and knives, hooks and barbs and of Alastair's happy, hideous laughter made it unlikely that it didn't.

And of course, he picked up the lighter, and next the knife and after that whatever it brought, just so long as the always, wide-eyed children were spared.

And all the time, while they played these games, danced this grisly dance, it reminded him it was because he was The Guardian and that he must beg for death to find some release from this inhuman ordeal.

At first he had no idea what it meant, well none beyond a dictionary definition of the word. However, as time passed some strange, in-built, genetic mojo began to thrum in his blood when it whispered the word to him. Power and old knowledge and renewed courage began to prickle through his veins.

Guardian.

There was a rightness about it. A consuming, strength-giving grace that made his red-rimmed eyes burn with a green-gold fierceness that began to sear the creature's skin and soul if it had one.

Of course, that made it angry. More so than it had ever been. Enough so that it worked to ensure his blood splattered higher and wider than it had before and his screams echoed until he had no breath left to manage even a sob.

So it was then that it knelt beside him and cradled him in it's arms.

"So Guardian..."

It crooned in soft, corrupt triumph.

"Will you beg me now? For your release? Your death?"

It held toward him a small, sharp sliver of silver.

And it was then that he knew.

It could not kill him unless he asked it to.

Without his consent it was impotent.

His laughter bubbled around the blood in his mouth as he called it out and his vision blurred to unconsciousness with the sight of it's fury in it's defeat.

snSNsn

Minnesota. A week before Christmas and it's cold enough to freeze hell over.

He's laying on his side, unconscious on the concrete floor, it's surface mirror-slick with ice.

His wounds have bled, soaking his t-shirt so it's frozen to the ground and his bare feet are blue with the cold.

Rusted shackles bruise his wrists where his arms are thrown out before him, reaching for the weapon that was wrenched from his hands.

He will survive this time, god knows how but then so will the the one responsible for this and it will forever return for him.

For he is The Guardian and he must be taught to beg for death.

snSNsn

He is surprised to wake. Though he has defied it and refused his release he had thought Death had come for him anyway.

But he has met the pale horseman before and as his eyes clear, the face before him is surprisingly not that of reaper.

"Dean?"

Sam's face is etched deep with fear, his amber eyes hollow with grey but for Dean it is a vision of safety and he smiles. Well maybe he does, as he's unsure if it resembles what he is aiming for.

"S...mm?"

It's a whisper in reality but in Dean's heart it shouts his triumph.

"Can you walk? We have to get out of here, get you somewhere safe..."

He can hear the panic in his brother's voice and feel his urgent hand running over his body, trying to catalogue the impossible litany of pain marked on his flesh.

"N..n..."

He mumbles.

"leg...br...kn..."

And Sam nods, taking in the bloody, swollen limb, tears brimming in his eyes.

"Don't worry...I'll carry you."

He rolls his head weakly, too tired and sore to object. Consciousness is beginning to slip from him.

"Please, Sam, let me."

This second voice too is known to him, is music to his ears and he summons enough strength to find the once-angel's face.

"Cas..."

He manages. It's a rough, bruised, a murmur of a noise but brings with it a vast out pouring of need and want and love and the now-human crawls close to wrap him in arms so fiercely tender.

"I thought I had lost you."

Bright blue eyes search his face as he is cradled into an embrace designed to hold him and he smiles.

"Never...I was right here."

He feels a hand cup his cheek and he presses into it, it's humanity warming him.

"I want to go home."

Dean whispers and a warm thumb ghosts across his cracked lips.

"So do I."

Strong arms gather him up, tight and safe about him.

"I love you."

The angel murmurs softly and he nods, knowing it to be the truth as he closes his eyes and sleep envelopes him.

Ends

**Thanks for reading. If you have a few moments to spare, let me know if you liked it.**


	2. Chapter 2

**This one keeps calling to me and so 100 words becomes thousands. Here be Destiel, turn back those who would not see...**

**Mirror - Extended Version**

**Chapter Two**

The trip to the E.R is a grim prospect that neither Sam nor Cas want to inflict upon him, not now when they have just won him back and he is so damaged but their muted whispers agree the necessity of it and recognize that he has injuries that they just cannot mend. Not now, when the benefit of Cas's grace is lost to them and Sam is still weaker than he would want or needs to be.

They come to an uncomfortable accord that it is better to do it now, while Dean is pretty much out of it, suspecting that once he is awake he will, almost certainly refuse the needed interventions.

Triage is mercifully swift. Dean is barely even conscious and the stern-faced medic-in-charge is decisive to the point of brusqueness. The open fracture of his leg is enough to indicate surgery all by itself, without the dirt-crusted claw marks that have gouged and rent his pale flesh, or the broken ribs or the suspicious burns or myriad way-too-precise, linear cuts that decorate his limbs.

Thankfully they sedate him quickly, not that Sam and Cas believe he really knows where he is and then they wait, their too-recent, shared, separation anxiety relapsing critically as they pace the empty room that the medic has promised Dean will fill.

Will fill, when they have mended him.

When?

If?

Dear God...

snSNsn

Surgery takes 5 hours. His leg is worse than they thought, the bone and blood jigsaw so anti-anatomical that plates and screws and wires and all manner of medical metal are called to the table.

The tired surgeon talks unhappily of loss of soft tissue and wound contamination, infection and possible necrosis and explains with clinical calm the engineering-construct of external fixation that surrounds and pierces and bites-through Dean's leg.

Between them they invent a convincing enough web of lies and false names and fake insurance that the police are finally not-called though neither of them are reassured that the 'came of his motor-cycle at high speed, lay in the underbrush for days' story will keep them safe. Not when Dean emerges from his narcotic-induced haze and, please-god, starts to remember, to talk or maybe to scream?

They keep him under for the best part of a week. It's an agony of confusion and waiting. A blur of spiking temperatures and fever and mega-loading antibiotics and longing to see him open his eyes without them rolling back helplessly into his head.

It feels like it will last for eternity, that they are trapped in a nightmare and though neither of them talk much about it, they both spend the sleepless hours trembling at the thought of how much worse it has been for Dean.

And then, suddenly he just 'turns the corner' and the medics are reducing the sedation and withdrawing tubes and drips and drains and speculating that 'he'll wake up soon for sure'.

But Cas and Sam hardly dare to hope.

So they just endure.

As the sun rises, they slumber in the same hard chairs they have sat in for what seams like forever. Their backs are irrevocably kinked, their eyes terminally hollowed with fatigue and worry.

It's all nearly, probably, absolutely too much to bear.

And then Dean speaks.

snSNsn

He says just one thing.

"Please. Take me home."

So they do.

snSNsn

Dean begins to wake as Sam stills the Impala's engine and he shifts uncomfortably in his cocoon of blankets. He's lying on the back seat, his long legs stretched out as much as is possible around the pillows and padding that support the metal cage that fixes his shattered limb. His upper-body is held carefully in Cas's arms. The determined, strong, fierce embrace keeping him steady as it has throughout the journey home.

His eyes open slowly, still groggy and blown with the serious narcotics Sam and Cas diligently 'acquired' to ease his way home as much as possible. He finds enough focus though to know that this stop is the last on their difficult journey and the familiar brick and mortar of the bunker is enough to draw from Dean the slightest semblance of a smile.

Sam's forward planning goes like like clock-work and Charlie and Kevin greet them at the door with a wheelchair, complete with leg rest and a matched pair of relieved but anxious smiles.

The younger hunter emerges from the car first, uncoiling from the driving seat wearily, his joints cracking as he stretches stiffly. He embraces Charlie and leans in as she rubs softly at his back, her face full of concern for him and for Cas, and most of all for Dean.

"You're tired."

It's a statement not a question and she pulls back, appraising him carefully as beside her Kevin maneuvers the chair closer to the back door of the Impala. Sam nods but smiles for her cause they are home now and so it will begin to be okay. Won't it?

"I'm alright, Charlie. It's really good to see you."

The red-head returns the smile, but it wavers as her glance moves urgently to the rear of the car, seeking Dean.

"How is he?"

Her voice is soft but tense and Sam understands entirely why. They have kept in touch constantly since he and Cas found Dean and so she knows how the ordeal has left scars, both physical and psychological on them all, but more so for Dean.

"Quiet."

Sam says carefully and that one loaded word calls her worried gaze back to his.

"Still not speaking?"

Sam shakes his head.

"Not a word. Not since he woke after his surgery in the hospital."

Charlie glances again at the bundled up figure on the back seat.

"But he knows you? Understands what's happening and everything?"

Sam blows out a weary breath.

"Yeah, I think so. He's a bit fuzzy from the meds but he knows what's going on and nods and stuff but he hasn't said a word. Not one. We've both tried, Charlie, but he won't speak, not for me, not for Cas."

Charlie frowns softly, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as they look helplessly at each other for a moment and then she nods once, determinedly, and squeezes Sam's arm firmly.

"Okay, one step at a time then. Let's get him in and settled and we'll work it out as we go along. We'll all be telling him to 'shut the fuck up' as usual before we know it!"

And Sam nods as they both hold onto the essential false bravado that neither of them actually believes.

snSNsn

Cas shifts cautiously as Sam exits the Impala and watches as the hunter quietly closes the door to be warmly greeted by their bunker-mates, Charlie and Kevin. It lightens his heart for a moment and he sighs quietly.

The newly-human is stiff and tired, his arms sore from holding Dean steady for hours on end as they've carefully transported him home but he doesn't care. Not one iota. He'd spend the rest of his days doing exactly this so long as he can keep Dean safe and out of that depraved hell-hole they found him in.

He hopes Dean knows that? It's vital that he does and Cas is terrified that he doesn't know how to make sure that Dean does? That he might fuck it up and he can't bear to contemplate that.

He feels the hunter stir as the soothing purr of the engine dies away and Cas twists his neck so he can look into those green eyes so familiar to him as they hesitantly open.

"Hey..."

His softens his rough voice as much as he knows how to do and smiles as Dean's gaze finds his face.

"We're home."

Cas smiles and tightens his embrace carefully and is rewarded with a small smile from his charge.

"How do you feel?"

It's become a sort of knee-jerk question and Cas winces inside knowing that Dean must be well and truly sick of him asking it, but he can't help it. He's desperate for Dean to feel better but perhaps even more urgently he needs/wants/longs to hear the hunter say something, anything, one way or another.

But there's nothing.

He thinks he maybe understands Dean's silence. Maybe? It's something to do with control and being controlled, helplessness and vulnerability. All things that sit particularly badly with the complex conundrum of a being that Dean is. Of course, it's all speculation because even if Cas wanted to try and talk to Dean about it, he can't. Not that he's sure he would even try? Not yet anyway. Not when loud noises or laughter or a myriad other things make Dean's eyes widen with what Cas is sure is terror.

So the question goes mute and Dean remains silent, just nodding imperceptible in the intuitive, non-verbal shorthand he and Sam have necessarily learned to be fluent in over the past few days. Cas nods and strokes his fingers against a blanket draped arm to show he understands. That he will be patient, be here for the silenced hunter, for as long as he needs, until he re-finds his voice again.

"That's okay then."

Cas murmurs reassuringly as he glances back to the figures outside the car, watching as they position the wheelchair close to the rear-door.

Sam makes eye contact with him, and he nods in unspoken agreement as the tall man reaches out and opens the Impala's door. It squeaks its familiar squeak as it moves, allowing in the cold, but welcome, fresh air. The three outside crowd into the cracked door, Sam crouching to eye level with Charlie and Kevin leaning in from the periphery and Cas eases Dean up imperceptibly so he can see their faces better.

"Hey, bro."

Sam smiles and lands a soft hand on Dean's uninjured leg and Cas feels the supine man works hard to not flinch at the touch.

"Ready to get out?"

The felled hunter takes in the trio and slowly nods his head so it brushes against Cas's chest. A soft, almost-hum whispers his ascent.

"Okay, good."

Sam voice is too cheerful, too desperately enthusiastic at their patient's whispered response but Cas understands. They all do.

He watches as Sam glances about the cabin of the car and the door space, the cogs in his head almost audibly grinding as he struggles to decide how best to exit Dean from the back seat without hurting him any more that necessary.

"How about you come towards me, Cas, and I'll ease Dean's leg out ahead of ya?"

Sam leans towards his brother as he speaks, moving as if he's gonna get hold of Dean's legs but the older man stiffens and sorta hum/grunts as he shakes his head, clearly nervous at the suggested plan.

"No?"

Sam's hands still but continue to hover and Cas feels Dean's head bump back against the arm that's curled around him. He glances into to the familiar green eyes to find a worried frown creasing Dean's brow.

Cas quirks an 'I don't understand' eyebrow and Dean's rolls his eyes and tips his head again towards the rear-door to Cas's back. Understanding dawns and Cas nods, smiling.

"Dean thinks it'll be easier if we use the other door, the one behind me, Sam."

The younger man glances to the door, again weighing up the situation.

"Uh-huh...okay...I get it..."

Sam nods enthusiastically, his eyes flicking between his brother and Cas.

"If you shift back and get out, Cas, I can crawl in and then ease his leg along the seat and then we're straight into the wheel-chair. Is that what you mean?"

Dean widens his eyes and nods in a 'you got it, Sammy' sorta way.

Methodology approved, Kevin and Charlie move swiftly to the opposite side of the car and open the door as Cas wriggles his way backwards, pulling Dean carefully with him as Sam picks up his brother's injured leg and supports it.

Dean helps as well as he can, pushing with his foot against the seat and shuffling along.

"You alright?"

Cas's arms are tight around Dean's chest as he reaches the edge of the seat and he can feel the hunter breathing a little fast but pretty steadily and is rewarded with a little huffed 'Mmm'.

The transition to the chair goes reasonably well with Dean hissing a couple of times but all in all they count it as a successful team effort and relief paints smiles on all their faces as Sam triumphantly wheels Dean into the bunker.

Into their home.

**chapter ends **

**Thank you for reading. Did you enjoy it?  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**Mirror - Extended Version **

**Chapter Three **

They settle Dean into bed, elevating his metal-encased leg on a pile of new pillows and lean him back into a second stack, propping him so his breathing is easier. Broken ribs are a bitch!

"You warm enough?"

Sam asks solicitously as he pulls the comforter up to his brother's waist and Dean nods, though if the truth be known he hasn't been warm since the moment he woke up in that anonymously awful room in Minnesota and part of him thinks he never will be again.

It's a strange coldness that lingers in him. Not just the purely physical sensation that blued his fingers and cramped his muscles as he lay chained in the darkness. No, this is an emotion too. It's about loss and betrayal, humiliation and stolen humanity and it chills him more than the damp and freezing concrete ever did.

He studies the face before him.

Sam.

My brother, Sammy, and Dean reasons that he can trust that face and if he can trust him then maybe he could admit he's cold? He wonders 'why did I nod?' but then he remembers that if he learned nothing else in that room, it was to always agree, to never contradict, never fight back or rebel or defy.

It took him the longest time to learn that and he has way too many scars and wounds to show as a result of his slowness. And yeah, he's pretty sure he's safe now but it's hard to un-learn something like that and without doubt he knows he can't take any more hurting just yet. So even though it's Sam and he honestly is fucking freezing, he nods again, just to be on the safe side.

It seems to have the desired effect as Sam pats his arm gently and rises from the side of the bed and Dean feels his heart rate spike as he tries to work out if the younger man is gonna leave him all alone?

It's odd cause 'alone', whilst he was in that dark, damp place was probably less immediately damaging than the times It was there with him but now 'alone' scares him more than just about anything. Dean thinks it's because he's been found and so he's remembered how good 'not-alone' feels so the thought of going back to that is unbearable.

And he's just about to open his mouth and ask Sam not to go when he remembers that it's best if he doesn't actually speak. He's managed to remember that all the way from the hospital to here but he needs to keep remembering it, if he's gonna stop them getting mad with him like It did. His speaking seamed to be one of the things that irritated the creature more than anything else, well aside from not screaming when he was hurting. That irritated It maybe even more.

In fairness neither Cas or Sam have given any indication that they'd be pissed if he spoke but Dean's nervous to test it out. He still feels...kinda weird. Dissociated from everything and confused as to what's the right thing to do in any given circumstance. He tells himself over and over again that he's safe now and he knows he is, but still that small, soft voice of caution within him compels him to silence. He hates feeling like this because he knows it's freaking out Sam and Cas but he can't think straight yet. Maybe it's the meds? He doesn't really know but he does know he's tired and he hurts so damn much that this is about the best he can do.

Thankfully that's the moment that Cas returns and Dean breathes a massive but silent sigh of relief. He hadn't really doubted that the once-angel would return because Cas had made a very conscious effort before he had left the room to ensure Dean understood he would only been gone for a short while. Weird thing was even though it had understood that Cas would come back it was still all he could do not to beg him not to go anyway. Even just for a minute. Even just for a fucking second.

Cas moves directly to take the seat on the side of Dean's bed that Sam has vacated. His hands are filled with a tray with various items on it. Dean can see a glass of milk and a steaming bowl alongside a scattering of pills and his belly cramps painfully at the sight. He's so damn hungry, like he was all the time when he was consigned to the darkness.

Dean watches as Sam scans the contents of the tray nodding to Cas before he turns his face back to the man in the bed.

"I'm gonna go and get a shower while Cas helps you to help eat and then you need to get some sleep, alright?"

Dean glances from the bowl to the tray-holder and back to Sam. He nods carefully wondering if this was a trick and they are going to just torment him with the food and drink as It had done so many times? He hopes not, he really does cause he's starving but he daren't say so. He's been caught that way before and even though he may be a slow learner he's not that dumb.

"Okay with you, Cas?"

Sam eyeballs the feeder as he makes to leave and Dean feels his heart rate notch up a pace as it does now when either Sam or Cas leave him but he swallows it down knowing they must be damn sick of nursemaiding him that he doesn't blame them. He reminds himself that they have kept their word too, and come back each time one or other of them had to leave him so he's pretty sure it'll be okay this time too.

"Yes, Sam. We will be fine."

Cas acknowledges and the younger hunter walks to the door where he glances back, his eyes warm with affection.

"I'll be just across the hall if you need me. You only have to shout and I'll come."

Cas nods for them both but Dean just thinks, 'yeah, like that's gonna happen!'

snSNsn

Cas reaches for the bowl from the tray and takes a spoon in the other hand, holding them both up for Dean to see.

"It's soup...chicken I think. Charlie made it for you. You like chicken don't you?"

Dean nods cause he's not stupid, duh! Okay, he's a bit fucked up in the head right now maybe, but he still understands what soup is. He makes no move toward the food though cause It caught him out like that too and the punishments the creature metered out were swift and pain filled. Cas sighs, seeing the hesitancy but not really understanding it and Dean hates that the new-human's face falls like he's disappointed.

"You're not hungry?"

Cas asks and Dean worries at his lip with his teeth cause he doesn't know what Cas wants as an answer. He could try just being truthful cause in all honesty, he's fucking ravenous but honesty got him a couple of broken bones before, so he settles for remaining neutral hoping for some sort of clue before he commits.

"You need to eat, Dean."

Cas's voice is sincere and his eyes look kind like Dean remembers them looking before...before all this. Before that room and the creature made him doubt just about everything but still it could just all be a trick? Or is he paranoid? Shit, he wishes things were clear. He's fuzzy, off-kilter, whacked in the head and he knows it but he can't find the way through it. He frowns and chews on his lip studying the man before him who's now speaking some more.

"You've hardly eaten since we...found you...You need to eat if you are to make a full recovery."

Cas's blue eyes hold Dean's and the hunter braves eye contact for a few moments cause when he was there, in that cold, dark room, he so, so wanted to see those eyes. He wants to tell Cas that. God, he so badly wants to tell him that and what if he never can? The prospect terrifies him.

Cas proffers the bowl again.

"Here, it's not really hot. You can sip it right out of the bowl if it's easier than using the spoon."

He reaches for Dean's right hand where it rests on the comforter, ignoring the hardly healed cuts and burns that pepper his pale skin and carefully presses the bowl into the hunter's unsure grip.

"Sip it slowly..."

Cas orders, but it's not an order like Dean has been subject to from the creature so he manages to suppress his shudders and dutifully sips at the warm soup.

Oh and it's good! It tastes rich and creamy and his mouth waters as his gut growls for more and for a moment he forgets everything that has happened.

snSNsn

Cas smiles as Dean slowly sips the soup. It's the first thing he's really seen Dean eat since they got him back that hasn't looked like it was about to choke him. It's a very small step forward but at the moment Cas is happy to settle for any slight change for the better.

He can see/ feel/ sense the confusion and anxiety pouring off Dean and its having a startlingly profound effect upon him. He finds himself wanting to enfold the hunter, to protect, soothe and reassure him that he is safe now. To hold him, banish his memories of that place and the in-human things the creature did to him.

It's a feeling that's new and strange for the once-angel and if he's honest it's off-balancing him significantly. He's thought a couple of times he'd like to talk to Sam about it as, with regard to being human, Sam and Dean are his touchstones. He's hesitant though cause, slow as he sometimes is, Cas understands that explaining how drawn he is to Dean is a might controversial so Sam just might not be the right person to speak to on this one? But then who the hell is?

He helps hold the bowl steady as the injured man takes four or five successive mouthfuls and Cas grins as Dean unconsciously lets out a very slight 'mmm' which seams to signify he's enjoying what he's eating.

They ease the bowl down together.

"Enough?"

Cas asks and the hunter nods, his tongue licking just a little at his dry, chapped lips.

"Was it good?"

Cas smiles encouragingly, his eyes intent on Dean's and the hunter hesitates but eventually nods once more. He wishes Dean would speak. Longs for it. Just to hear Dean whisper would be enough.

"Here..."

Cas takes the pills and places them into Dean's hand before reaching for the glass of milk. He waits as Dean contemplates the meds, frowning.

"What's wrong?"

Dean looks up from his palm, his eyes darting and fearful as he shakes his head. His wide, haunted eyes say silently 'nothing...not a thing's wrong' when it's clear from his thin, pinched lips and tense body, that he mistrusts the pills and their purpose.

Cas wonders what the hell he was forced to swallow whilst the creature kept him chained in the foul darkness to make him so fearful? He opens his mouth to ask but Dean's face pales and his eyes saucer wide so Cas snaps his mouth closed. How the hell is he gonna help if he can't even try and find out what's wrong cause Dean can't/won't/daren't even speak?

Patience. Cas reminds himself, schools himself to take it steady and tries again.

"They are just antibiotics to help with your wounds and some pain medication, Dean. So you don't feel your injuries as badly. Do you remember at the hospital? The doctor gave them to us?"

And Dean nods carefully, hesitantly lifting the tablets to his lips.

snSNsn

The soup is so good and as it fills his belly Dean revels in the warmth it brings. He drinks a fair amount of it and he's pretty sure Cas is pleased with him. Mind you there were many times he thought he'd got it right when he was chained, only to have the creature kick the crap outta him anyway afterwards. He never did quite work out its motivations. Maybe it was just crazy? Or maybe he is?

His doubts magnify again when his sees his reward for doing as he was told and eating the food, is a handful of pills and his mind races back to the crap the creature forced down his throat when it pined him in the darkness. He has no idea what that stuff was but he remembers that it made him sick to his stomach. Is this more of that?

He hesitates and sees that Cas knows he's hesitating but there's no punch or blow this time. Still he tenses, waiting for it, just in case.

No blows materialize.

The ex-angel just explains patiently to him what the pills are and Dean remembers that they do seam to take his pain away and don't seam to make him puke so he holds his hand out for them and obediently swallows them.

snSNsn

"Are you tired?"

Cas asks him after the pills and even though he tries not to, Dean starts a little at the question.

Oh crap!

This is it. Now he's in trouble.

The creature liked to ask him seemingly innocent stuff like that so It could punish him when he got the answer wrong. It didn't like him to sleep and so found ever more inventive ways to ensure he didn't. The common denominator to them all being pain.

The new-human notes the hunter's flinch and though he doesn't know the detail of what has provoked it he can see the fear in the grey shadows smudging Dean's glassy green eyes.

It hurts him to think what the hell Dean has endured. He wants very badly to find the creature and make it suffer as it made Dean and that scares Cas. Vengeance is not a admirable quality in an angel and most of his reference points are still angelic even though he's not anymore. That he is not scares him considerably too.

"You need to sleep."

Cas makes it a matter of fact statement, kind but unequivocally voiced so hopefully Dean can accept it.

"Finish your milk first."

Cas puts a finger to the bottom of the glass and raises it gently mouth-ward and he's unsure if he's happy or distressed by Dean's unresisting compliance. He's used to more challenge from the hunter, more sassy retaliation, hell, often more stubborn defiance. But this Dean has none of that. His face is either defensively neutral or pale with undisguised terror and Cas hates both. He wants his Dean back. The overtly confident and cocky yet sometimes shy and vulnerable Dean who this creature has taken and critically damaged. Broken maybe?

He needs that Dean to come home to him but he doesn't for the life of him know how to make that happen. He sighs and takes the empty glass and places it with the bowl on the tray.

"Now, you must sleep."

He states simply and rises, starting to move for the door and Dean's heart pounds uncontrollably at his impending abandonment.

snSNsn

Dean gasps fearfully. He can't help it. He tries to hold it back, stifle it, bury it deep but it bubbles and burns within him until his heart beats so hard that it makes the breath he's trying to hold stutter through his pursed lips.

And Cas hears him which is just what Dean didn't, and of course, so desperately did, want him to do. The blue eyed man returns immediately to the bed and Dean is terrified that maybe Cas is angry with him because he's forgotten how to really tell any more? All he can remember is the creature and how everything he did, even when he did exactly as It told him to do, made It angry.

He tries to work it out. He sees Cas's eyes are wide open _(so blue)_ and his mouth is frowning but Dean can't work out if that means the ex-angel is going to be mad and beat him like his captor did or whether it's something else entirely? He wishes he understood but the long darkness has chased away his knowledge of normal interactions and the confusion is as tiring as his constant pain is.

He wants to ask. To find his voice and for a moment he tries to frame a question but then it crashes back on him. If he talks, makes a noise when he hasn't been given permission, Cas might be mad like the creature always seamed to be?

He doesn't know what the fuck to do and it's driving him crazy cause he knows he usually understands most of this stuff. He feels stupid and out of control and breathless with anxiety he can't find a way to push down.

He bites hard on his lip and tucks his head down submissively and wishes it would all just come clear cause he doesn't know how long he can go on like this for.

snSNsn

Cas hears the gasp and knows, heart wrenchingly, that fear has pulled it from the injured hunter. He doesn't know exactly why? Doesn't recognize that he has said or done anything especially fear-inducing but then, he reasons, he hasn't lived through the hideous ordeal that Dean recently has. Anyway, it doesn't matter what has caused it, he has to find a way to reassure the hunter that he is safe, so he tries.

"It's alright."

Cas speaks quietly and moves slowly as he sits carefully back on he side of the bed but even so he watches Dean shrink back from him.

"What's wrong?"

Cas keeps his question measured, no hint of judgement or recrimination in his words but still Dean's breathing hitches noisily. He so wishes Dean could/would speak as he's floundering as to what's wrong.

"I can see that you are frightened, Dean...'

He reaches forward instinctively, stretching his hand out to reach for Dean's.

snSNsn

Dean can feel his heart rate spike as the fallen-angel reaches his hand toward him. He desperately wants the touch, craves some contact that isn't a blow or a punishment and he's pretty sure this isn't that? Pretty sure.

He knows cause Cas's face is soft and open, full of concern and when he digs down deep he finds the reasoning bit of him that the creature has temporarily and so effectively subjugated and processes that the other man's displayed emotions are genuine.

So he allows the touch.

He fights the urge to shrink back, or lash out and when Cas's hand closes gently about his he hesitantly mirrors the grip.

Chapter ends


End file.
